


We dream in the dark for the most part

by WroteTheWayOut



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alex is bored and want attention and love but doesn't know how to ask for it, Angst, Burr is sad, Canon Era, Eliza is busy, F/M, Hamilton is a ghost, I can't write comedies, Mention of Mental Illness, and also he's a little bit depresed, and also sad, comedy (a little), so maybe there's some historical inacurances, supernatural stuff, the hamilkids, this is musical inspired not historical
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2018-12-10 23:57:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11702526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WroteTheWayOut/pseuds/WroteTheWayOut
Summary: Ten years had passed since the duel between Burr and Hamilton. Burr just lost his daugther and is really alone, so goes to visit Hamilton's grave... the thing is... when he return home, he's not alone anymore.Ghost!AU





	1. Burr.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a funny fic, but obviously I can't write comedies and ended up being sad and with feels. Sorry.  
> Also, was inspired by a fanart that I couldn't find again, but was really beatifull. 
> 
> Also, this is a birthday gift (very - like 2 months) late for my boyfriend. I I WANTED TO MAKE IT COMEDY BUT I COULDN'T DO IT. I STILL LOVE YOU, DON'T HATE ME.

Gray clouds covered the sky, threatening to rain at any moment, giving the already depressing landscape an even gray and nostalgic tone. Commemorative plates of more than a century of life, dirty and almost illegible, mixed with other more white and new made think that the world had lost its colors from one moment to another.

 

The only figure there, however, had his eyes fixed on a very particular tomb. Ten years had passed since it had been erected, ten years since that dawn, ten years since he himself had taken the life of the one who rested there.

 

The name of who was once his friend and who later became his enemy glowed in front of him. The rock still gleaming, probably thanks to Eliza's care.

 

Eliza... A chill ran down his spine as he thought about it. Ten years ago, he hadn’t thought about her or her children. He had only thought of himself. He had thought that Hamilton would also shoot, that his own bullet would end up embedded in the ground. After all, he was not the best shooter in the world. So bad a shooter was that it had hit him in a deadly zone without really pretending it.

 

“You know… I still owe you that drink.”

 

He murmured to the rock, imagining the expression Alexander would put, the words he would release. Probably insulting him, he would say that he was an ungrateful and stingy man for not having ever invited him the drink he had promised the day they had met. Maybe that's why he had a bottle of whiskey in his hands at that moment.

 

“I think I’m a little bit late, but-- here it is.” Slowly, with all the weight of a life full of losses and defeats on his body, he sat down in front of the grave. "It seems that in the end we share the same curse, Hamilton-- Surviving our children."

 

He uncorked the bottle so he could toss a little over the rock, wetting the letters praising the country's first treasury secretary. Then he took a long sip, and tears began to fall on his cheeks.

 

Everything he had ever fought for and lived through had vanished. His beloved Theodosia, his sweet Theo... Once again, he was alone in life. Maybe, just maybe, if he hadn’t fired that bullet ten years ago, he would still have a friend. But that wasn’t the case.

 

Life was cruel, but it had been even more so with Aaron Burr.

 

***

 

He hung the overcoat on the coat rack by the door just inside. The garment was soaked, like all of it, and would not allow his floors to get wet by recklessness. Then he took off his boots and once again regretted the loss of his beloved umbrella. If only he still had it…

 

If only he had still had so many other things, less material, more beloved.

 

He began to walk through the silent, empty house in search of a towel. Silence, in another time, was something he’d appreciated. As he wiped his face and proceeded to remove the rest of the soaked garments, he shuddered and wished he didn’t get sick. What would he do if he fell ill in a huge, lonely house?

 

Burr decided to go and light the chimney before continuing. It would be better if the atmosphere was tempered and, moreover, it would give a little luminosity to the room.

 

Once the fire was lit, he tried to return to his previous activity and finish changing, but something stopped him halfway. A sound from the top floor. A pounding of things. Had any animal come through the window? It was strange in him to leave the windows open, more considering that it was the upper floor, but that was the instantaneous thought his rational mind made.

 

He looked at the stairs. His already tired legs didn’t want to make the effort to climb knowing that he probably wouldn’t find anything up there. However, the new sound that reached his ears made those doubts disappear. He would have to go up.

 

And so he did. He started to go up, the cold increasing with each step that moved away from the fireplace of the lower floor. The wood creaked beneath his feet, and added to the prevailing darkness, gave the whole place a dark air worthy of the stories that were often told in army camps at night, amid drinks and jokes.

 

There was no alcohol that night, but in truth it would have been better to have it. After all, what he saw was worth a hallucination for the effects of the drink.

 

"It's about time you went up. You took more than I imagined."

 

And that was the last thing he heard before the world went round and turned black.

 

***

 

When he opened his eyes again, the whitened face of the one who had spoken to him was so close to his own face that, if he were corporeal, their noses would have brushed.

 

"It's about time!" His voice was exactly as he remembered it. Equally sonorous, just as irritating. Burr's heart began to beat so fast that it seemed about to jump out of his chest. "Come on, get up. You and I have a lot of things to talk about. "

 

“What--”

“What am I? A ghost, obviously, I thought that was pretty clear.”

 

That answer fully confirmed, of course, it was "Hamilton's ghost."

"Of course! Who else? Don’t tell me you've forgotten my face, it's only been ten years!"

 

"You say it like it's been ten days."

"When you're dead, the time passes differently."

 

"I've gone mad."

"Maybe, but not for talking to me. I assure you, Burr, that I am completely real." A smile broke on Hamilton's face, as if giving him some good news.

 

For the first time, Aaron took the time to observe him well. His features were exactly the same as he had in that fateful duel of so many years ago. The glasses on his nose, his hair down at his shoulders... He even wore the same outfit.

 

“What are you doing here? Why are you doing this to me?”

“You say that thing about the drink today, not me.” The first treasury secretary shrugged, as if that were enough explanation.

 

The more he watched, the longer the phantom spoke, Burr became more and more convinced that this was indeed his old friend, the man he had killed. There was no one else on the earth who could make such expressions and say such words as if it were the most logical and rational thing in the world.

 

The former vice president rubbed his eyes, tired. Hamilton, as always, had given an answer, but not the one he wanted. Not exactly and yet, he explained it to perfection.

 

"Basically, you're here to annoy me."

"Arguably."

"Is the afterlife so boring?"

"It's actually quite funny, but I felt like bothering you. That was always more fun. "

 

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t. C’mon, let’s drink that drink you own me.”

 

“You’re a ghost! You can’t drink!”

 

In response, Hamilton simply took a small hand-held candlestick on the floor and passed it from hand to hand, playing with it, not dropping it. Then he hit it against one of the furniture, making the sound that Burr recognized as the one he had heard from the ground floor.

 

"You're as noisy as in life." It was Aaron's simple comment that he stood up slowly and started his way down once more.

 

For a glorious moment, he thought he had recovered his sanity, that everything that had happened on the upper floor had been a side effect of fainting....

 

But unfortunately it wasn’t. Although he didn’t see Hamilton all the way to the kitchen, he did find it in this one, waiting for him leaning against the table. Or as close to "leaning on the table" as a ghost can be.

 

“Oh god…”

 

“Thank you, but it’s just me.” 

 

Hamilton winked, then stared at him as if he was very impatient. Or at least that was the feeling Burr had at that moment... although in truth, in life, Hamilton used to have a look of almost continuous impatience, as if he couldn’t bear the rest of humanity for being lazy or not doing their jobs. In hindsight, considering all the things his old friend had done, it made sense to think that of the rest of humanity.

 

"You haven’t changed anything."

“Of course not. I’m dead. Dead people don’t change.”

 

Aaron gave a long sigh and simply decided to ignore it. As he had done more than once in his life. What he did, moreover, was to look for a couple of glasses and the bottle of whiskey that had opened in the tomb of who was now in front of him.

 

Hamilton's white, transparent face seemed to brighten at the sight of the bottle. The brilliance he acquired was as if the light of the moon reflected on silverware. Those dark, super expressive eyes, always surrounded by dark circles, seemed to come back to life behind the glasses he wore.

 

He poured two glasses, before Hamilton's anxious gaze, and as soon as he was finished, the ghost took one of the glasses and carried it to his mouth, drinking the contents of it in one gulp. However, as Burr had suspected, the liquid didn’t pass to his old friend's disembodied stomach.

 

"Why don’t I feel anything ?! It's not fair, it's a good whiskey! I want to taste it! "

"Hamilton..." Aaron's eyes stared at the wooden floor beneath the floating figure.

 

He didn’t seem to hear, and he took the glass Burr was holding, emptying its contents into his mouth as well. Again, the complaints were displayed. "Bloody hell!"

 

"Alex..." Again, Burr tried to stop him, but he couldn’t, and the ghost took the whole bottle and brought it to his mouth. "ALEXANDER!" This time, his scream made him stop, and the alluded one looked at him with an obvious sadness in his eyes. "You're wetting the whole floor."

 

"What?" His hand shook a little as he rested the bottle on the table and looked down. The advantage of being a ghost was that you could see through your own body and go through walls, the disadvantage - besides that you’re dead, of course - is that everything you drink or eat passes directly to the ground. "Oh."

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Hamilton's face contorted into a pout. And Burr wanted the earth to swallow him to escape the tantrum that would surely happen next.

 

"It's not fair," whispered the white figure, staring into the puddle of wiskey that had formed beneath its incorporeal body. "Ten years have passed since I last had a drink. I thought that by coming here I could drink again, but apparently not. "

 

Aaron knew he would regret asking, but he still did. "What do you mean?"

 

Hamilton looked up and their eyes met. "The world of the living, I thought I could do the things I did before. The afterlife can become boring at some point, you know? And apparently I can’t reincarnate yet." And here was the tantrum. "And the worst thing is that I can’t make a complaint! They don’t let me work, neither read nor drink! What am I supposed to do? I mean, seeing Philip, Laurens and Peggy again was great. Angelica last year too, but I can’t spend eternity drinking tea with them! Especially because we can’t drink anything! The dead do not drink in the world of the dead, the dead do not eat in the world of the dead, the dead die of boredom in the world of the dead!" Hamilton folded his arms, frustrated and offended by death itself . "By the way, your wife sends you greetings."

 

The latter made Burr's legs shake and he had to grab hold of one of the chairs to stand. "Theo?"

 

"Yes. Or did you get married again?" Aaron shook his head. "Yes, she did. She's worried about you, you know? He says you're very lonely lately. When I said that I would come... she was glad."

 

"She was glad that you... came... to visit me?"

"Yes, she said it would be good for you to argue a bit with me."

"Sweet Jesus." Burr rubbed his eyes, unable to believe that his dear Theo would have said such a thing. Although the former vice president couldn’t admit it, the discussion with Hamilton at that moment already cheered him up a little.

 

Alexander then changed his expression to a smile and floated to where the other was, resting a hand gently on his shoulder. "We both know she's right, sir." The man could only sit heavily on the chair on which he had previously supported. "You were my first friend here, in America, you know? I'll never forget that. "

 

A small silence fell between them, Hamilton's ghost still with his hand resting on the other man's shoulder.

 

"Why didn’t you just apologise?" Burr interrupted the silence with a slightly broken voice, looking his own hands, already old and wrinkled.

 

"What?"

 

"Why didn’t you excuse yourself? You could have done it and... the duel might not have happened. "

 

Hamilton snapped his ghostly tongue.”You know why.”

 

And yes, he knew it perfectly. The man who published a pamphlet telling his infidelity to deny a misappropriation of funds was not going to retract his words.

 

But according to that logic, he wouldn’t have fired in the air either. So the question was different.

 

"Why didn’t you shoot?"

 

This time, the response was slow to arrive. And the minutes seemed to last for hours until it arrived.

 

"Because I thought you would not shoot."

 

And that was enough for the tears to come out of Burr’s eyes, to hide his face in his hands. Of course he believed that... exactly as he'd thought Alex would shoot, and so he had. They knew each other too much, and that's why the duel was over as it was over.

 

***

 

When Aaron Burr woke up in the morning, with the sun beating on his face, he believed that all that had happened the previous day had been nothing more than a long-lived dream, perhaps a product of alcohol. But when he looked to his right and saw Hamilton floating happily in the middle of his room, he wished the storm of the day before to return and that a lightning strike him.

 

“Oh, you wake up! I never thought you were a  sleepyhead.” 

“I’m not a sleepyhead, I’m just a normal person who wakes up at a normal time.”

“Are you trying to say that I’m not a normal person?”

“Hamilton, you already know that you aren’t.” 

“You’re right. Thank you.” 

 

Burr looked at him for several minutes, but Hamilton seemed completely satisfied with the fact that he had been called oddly indirectly. Of course, he himself had said it, he was dead and dead people didn’t change, they were always the same. And, definitely, Hamilton was exactly the same in every respect.

 

Even in the arrogance that, in the end, had led to his death.

 

Aaron had been thinking hard over the night about what the ghost had said. Alexander hadn’t thought he was going to shoot. The arrogance for which he had never excused himself and which had brought them to duel had been the same that made him believe that he knew him well enough to know his actions during it.

 

Hamilton had died of arrogance. Burr had just completed the ball. Punishment for having lived under the terms of that capital sin.

 

"Why do you look at me like that?" Hamilton's white, transparent hand moved in front of his eyes and made him look away.

 

"You said you saw your son, and Theo... Did you go to heaven?"

"Heaven? That can’t be called heaven, but neither hell. It is simply an afterlife. There's no god, no angels, just people that are dead like you. I mean, like me, you understand... Why? Do you think I was too evil in life to be in heaven? "

 

"I ... No, of course not. I guess no one deserves the eternal flame just because I dislike it. "

 

"You don’t like me?! I thought we were friends! "

 

Burr looked up at the general once more. He had said it without thinking, almost unconsciously. In the last years of Hamilton's life, Burr had called him his enemy, hated him, despised him. And after he died... after he murdered him... He called him a friend again. Burr no longer understood what was left in his heart, not after that July morning, not even after ten years.

 

“We are.”

 

For some reason, Hamilton seemed extremely happy every time he affirmed that bond of friendship that united them. Was it some kind of outstanding debt? It wasn’t something that was in his capacity, or entereses, to understand.

 

Once dressed, he decided to go down to breakfast and, obviously, the ghost followed closely.

 

“Hamilton.”

“Mm?”

“Why are you here?”

“I told you, I was bored in the afterlife.”

“Yes, but-- Why here, with me? Why not with your wife?” 

“Well…” 

 

In a flash, it seemed that the Caribbean gathered all the nervousness that could come and had it abruptly. He began to play with his fingers, with his clothes, even bit his lips slightly. He remembered him like that sometimes in life, but probably not so strongly.

 

“I’m scared.” 

 

“Scared? Of Eliza?” 

“No! Well, yes. A little. I’m just scared.”

 

“I didn’t think that Alexander Hamilton could be afraid of something.”

“I’m afraid of a lot of things. Storms, for example. But yes, if I see my dear Betsy… I don’t know what I’m going to say.” 

 

"I'm sure you'll find the right words. You always do."

 

"Not with her." Hamilton paused, and it seemed to Burr that he was only a very frightened boy at the time. "I hurt her too much in life, I left her alone with seven little children and a huge debt... I can’t just appear in front of her and tell her _ ‘hey Liza, how you doing?’ _ ”

 

"That leaving her alone with seven children was not entirely your fault. The rest yeah, of course, you were not a very nice husband, but that's not the point." The former vice president folded his arms. "But you should go and see her anyway. Surely she miss you, like your children. I have heard that she’s the second directress of an orphanage. "

 

“Yeah, I know.”

 

"I also heard she asked James Monroe to publicly apologize for having unfairly accused you."

 

“Really? That I didn’t know.” 

“You’re a foul, Hamilton. She still loves you and you’re ‘afraid’ of talk to her.”

“Don’t judge me! You never took risks in your life, don’t pretend that I do it in my death. "

 

“I’m not pretending that. I just saying… that you need to see her sooner or later.” Hamilton launched a small protest and began to float higher and higher. “Where you going?” 

 

“Outside. I need to think.”

“Okey…” 

 

Aaron smiled slightly and concentrated at last on his breakfast. It had been a good strategy for Alex to leave him alone once and for all, but in truth, he had said it with complete sincerity. If he had the opportunity to see his dear Theo again... He would do it without thinking. Alexander couldn’t waste his time, he wasn’t going to let him do it..

 

***

 

A couple of days passed. Hamilton had become unusually quiet, so much so that he was beginning to bother him a little. On more than one occasion, he had found it floating statically in the middle of a room, thoughtful.

 

And there was nothing more creepy than entering a room and finding your best friend's ghost floating in the middle of it.

 

After three days, he finally decided to ask. "Hamilton, what's happening?"

 

"Nothing, why?" The treasury secretary was leaning against one of the couch in front of the fireplace -which was off- with a book in his hands. Burr still didn’t understand how easy it was for him to handle objects despite having no corporeal form. 

 

"Do not play games with me, you've been too quiet these past few days."

 

"It's nothing, really."

"You're obviously lying." Burr sat at one end of the couch.

"I'm not lying!" Hamilton slammed the book shut and threw it without looking where. Obviously it ended up beating Burr in the head.

 

"Is about Eliza? What we talked the other day...?"

 

The ghost narrowed his eyes and let out a long sigh. Another thing that Burr still didn’t understand was why he was still capable of sighing and blowing that way if he technically didn’t breathe.

 

“Maybe…?”

 

“For god sake Alexander, go talk to her!” Without another word, he tossed the book back, which obviously crossed Hamilton, and ended up sprung up on the sofa.

 

"Okey Okey! I will!" He quickly left the sofa and began to spin around it, like a cat running around a table. "But what am I supposed to say?"

 

“Whatever you feel. I don’t know, I’m not good with emotions.”

 

“Yeah, I know that... “ A new sigh, one that made Aaron shudder, because Hamilton had decided to place himself right behind him, so that the frozen air of his ghostly lungs hit him in the back of his neck. “Okey, I’ll go. Wish me luck.” 

 

“Good luck, Alexander.”

 

And with a nod, Hamilton's ghost disappeared from his sight, leaving him alone once more in his huge house.

 


	2. Eliza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a lot to write because I wanted to do justice to Eliza and write her well... I don't know if I did, hopefully yes? I don't know, I'm very bad at writing womens...  
> Also, hopefully the final chapter would not take so long.  
> Thank you for reading! Please, leave a comment if you like it!
> 
> PS: this was finished at 2 am, so... there's probably typos and spanglish (I'm not english native, sorry)

She groaned barely opened her eyes, realizing how little she had slept instantly. Her whole body screamed at her to stay in bed, but she knew perfectly well that she couldn’t do it, she had things to do.

 

The weight of all the responsibilities fell on her conscience, knowing that it was she herself who had assigned them, but also knowing that there was no one else capable of carrying them out. Not anymore.

 

Until a year ago she had the help of Angelica; now Elizabeth also performed certain tasks, but her eldest daughter required special care that only she could perform.

 

She sat up in bed, and instantly wished she hadn’t. Her eyes were fixed on the floating figure -was she still dreaming?- in front of her, just at the foot of the bed that had been too large for a single person for ten years.

 

The figure gave her a smile, one like so many others he had dedicated so long ago. Those dark, precious eyes for which she had fallen for decades, his hair falling on his shoulders as in the last years of his life, his glasses on his nose... too pallid to be normal.

 

Everything screamed at her that this wasn’t possible, that she definitely was still dream, but yet her lips pronounced his name as if it were real. As if that were another day of their lives as a happy marriage.

 

“Alexander?”

 

The reaction of the figure to hear the name was like returning to the night they met. That spark she had always loved appeared in the eyes of her late husband.

 

“Hi, Eliza.”

 

The voice was exactly the same, and following her most instinctive thoughts, she took one of the pillows by her side and threw it at him. The object did nothing but pierce it and fall to the floor, the path followed by the man's eyes.

 

"At least you didn’t faint like Burr." For some reason, that phrase convinced her that somehow, however impossible it seemed, this was indeed Alexander. Who else than her Hamilton would say something like that when trying to be hit by a pillow? "It's good to see you, Betsey."

 

“What--?”

 

“It’s okey, I’m really me. I’m Alex, I’m a ghost.”

 

“Because that explains everything.” Laughter flooded the room, and a chill ran through her. The same laughter she had so often heard. “How is this happening? Am I dreaming?”

"Nope. I'm as real as the sun that just came out. "

 

Eliza finally got out of bed and approached the white figure. Hamilton followed her gaze, and once they were face to face, she reached out to try to touch him. She tried to stroke his cheek, but all she felt was an icy air beneath her hand.

 

“I’m so sorry.”

 

She sighed. "For what, exactly?"

 

"For all."

 

That was another very typical response from Hamilton, so Eliza gave another sigh "Why are you here?"

 

"Because I missed you. And because Burr summoned me accidentally... and because the afterlife is boring. "

 

"Burr summoned you?"

"Threw whiskey in my grave." As if that explained everything.

 

She turned, looking for a small blanket to put on her shoulders, and then she looked at him again. "So... The afterlife exist?"

 

"Yes, but it's boring. There is never anything to do. "

 

"One would think that with everything you did in life, doing nothing would be a break."

"But after ten years it becomes monotonous."

 

By now she couldn’t help but smile. That really was her Alexander. Who couldn’t take vacations for too long. Somehow she understood, she had adopted her husband's habits, filling up with work after work, and assuming that if she had to spend years without doing anything at all, she would also get bored.

 

"There it is, the smile I always loved."

 

That made her smile even more, “So, the afterlife… Did you see Philip?”

 

“Yes. He’s fine, I mean… Go there, talk to everyone, flirt with everyone regardless of gender... "

 

"Just like you." Listen to her dear Philip made her eyes fill with tears. Her little one, her boy, her firstborn, who had been snatched from her too soon.

 

"Yeah." A shadow of guilt fell on Hamilton's ghostly face.

 

"Don’t put that face, I forgave you for all that long ago."

 

"I know."

"Just as I forgave Burr."

 

"Did you tell him? Because he doesn’t seem to forgive himself. "

"I told him it was not entirely his fault. I mean, if someone had said what you said about him... you would have acted in the same way. "

 

"You know me too well."

"Not only that, there is a whole pamphlet showing it. Ninety pages. "

 

The grimace that this phrase caused in the ghost's features made Eliza look away again. She had forgiven him for that too, a long time ago. She knew she didn’t have to bring it back, but she couldn’t help it.

 

She turned on her heel, turning her back on him, staring at the clothes she would wear that day, trying to forget all the pain of that moment that was coming back.

 

“I loved you so much. I still do.”

 

Eliza couldn’t believe she was saying that under those circumstances. Somehow, she believed that transparent figure that claimed to be her Alexander. She could feel it, in every fiber of her being. This was the soldier desperate to obtain a battalion to lead that she had known so long ago, the man with whom she had had eight children, the same one who had sworn to her eternal love and at the same time cheated in her own house.

 

"I know. And I love you too, my sweet Eliza. Even death didn’t stop me. "

 

She could feel a cold touch against her shoulder, like a winter breeze caressing her skin, and she knew that Alexander was trying to caress her, to comfort her and perhaps to show her affection as he did in life.

 

She turned to look at him again and see that, indeed, he tried to caress her, pure pain and guilt embodied in those eyes so expressive that now were nothing but grayish shadows of the past.

 

"I have work to do." It wasn’t a way to tell him to leave, it was the truth. In fact, she had often imagined how it would be to get Alex back for a moment, and now that it was happening she wanted to get out of there as fast as she could. But she also wanted him to be there when she came back. "In the orphanage."

 

"Oh, I know. Second directress, eh? "

 

Eliza nodded, "Many say they now understand how it is that I ended up falling in love with you, we are very similar in certain respects."

 

"Cover yourself with work, for example."

"For example." Now it was their laughter that flooded the room, but instantly the woman became serious again. "I really have to go." At Alexander's silence, she spoke again. "Will you be here when I get back?"

 

"If you want…"

 

Eliza bit her lip slightly. "I do."

 

***

 

The work at the orphanage was never finished. It was always necessary to do something new, from administrative and financial roles, to bathing the children. Every day they seemed to have more children in their care, but Eliza couldn’t be happier. She could see them grow up, give them an education they would otherwise not have, show them all the opportunities they had in life.

 

And yes, she had seen her own children grow up, whom she loved with all her soul and who loved her equally, but those children... Those children had a special spark, one that she could recognize as the spark she had seen in the eyes of Alexander when she first met him.

 

That spark she had seen again in the morning.

 

Luckily she had many distractions and could just not think of her husband's ghostly figure. Like to finish bathing the little Mary who was wetting her with her splash at that moment.

 

"'Liza, look what I can do!" The little girl continued to play with the water, taking a little between her hands and pulling it up, wetting himself and Eliza in the process.

 

"Very good!" Laugh the woman, continuing to wash the girl's hair, thinking that they couldn’t wait long to teach her how to swim, because Mary seemed to have a particular liking for water.

 

After finishing with the little one, it was the turn to comb other girls a little older, and then attend a couple of children who had hurt themselves playing, and then have them eat.

 

Meals were by far the most chaotic moment of the day. Although everyone waited their turn properly, there were always some who ended up completely dirty, or crying because didn’t like the food of the day, or fighting with another child by the seat.

 

Only a couple of times mealtime had become a real war, with food flying everywhere. Luckily only two, because even though they had several taxpayers from wealthy New York families, the money to buy food wasn’t alway enough.

 

After eating, when she finally managed to make the little ones fall asleep and the elders didn’t make noise, she was able to sit at her desk and rest at least a little.

 

She leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes for a moment and letting the tiredness dissipate with each of her deep breaths. She still had a couple of hours to go, especially since when she got home, she would have to deal with her own children and household chores.

 

And with Hamilton.

 

"Oh God..." Just thinking about how to explain it to her children made the relaxation dissipate immediately.

 

"Eliza?" Her friend's voice came from the other side of the door, preceded by a slight knock.

 

"Come on, Joanne." The young woman had lost only a few weeks ago her mother, her old friend and co-founder of the orphanage, but she still had a friendly, contagious smile. "Something happened?"

 

The woman entered the small office, closing the door behind her and sitting down in front of Eliza. "Sorry for having just arrived, things are still a little scrambled at home."

 

"You don’t have to apologize, Jo, I understand perfectly."

 

"Still... how was everything? How are you? You look tired."

 

The older woman sighed deeply before answering. "The kids have been as usual, a little rough, but no more than usual... We have to show Mary how to swim, she's getting more and more restless."

 

"Oh, we can do it on the next visit to Albany."

 

"Yes, that's right." Eliza gave her a small smile and they sat for a moment in silence, then spoke again. "Jo, you were raised with the belief in a God and a life of rewards after death, right?"

 

The girl looked at her strangely. "Have not we all been raised in those beliefs?"

 

"I suppose, but from there to believe them completely..."

 

"Personally I like to think that my mother has come to a better life."

 

"Of course." What was she thinking when she asked her that so soon after she had lost someone she loved? "Surely all who have departed are there."

 

A new silence fell between the two women, interrupted this time by Joanne. "Has something happened to make you doubt this, Liza?"

 

"Oh, it doesn’t matter." Her husband had simply returned in the form of a ghost saying that the afterlife was boring. "It's just that ten years have gone by since my Hamilton's departure and... I suppose there’s things that crosses my mind right now."

 

"Oh, it's true! Ten years... Time flies, doesn’t it? "

 

"Yes..." Those ten years had passed without Eliza noticing, not really, it was true; but so many things had happened, he had lost so many loved ones in those years that it was hard to think of that time. "Do you believe in ghosts, Joanne?"

 

The question certainly dislocated the youngest, who looked at her as if she had gone crazy for a moment and then gave a little laugh. "Of course not, they're just stories for children, Liza, you know how it is."

 

Eliza gave a little laugh, which had nothing of fun. "Yeah, you're right."

 

Only stories for children, so they would not get into dark and lonely places, so they would be careful... She knew perfectly well that this was the ghost stories, but she was in the middle of one at that moment, and still didn’t know what to do.

 

***

 

When she got home, late at night, her whole body asked her to go to sleep, but she still couldn’t. She had to see Angelica, her eldest daughter, who had kept the mind of a little girl since her brother Philip had died. She couldn’t fend for herself, and Eliza knew that at some point she would have to take her to an institution or to a doctor, because things were getting even more complicated for her and her children.

 

Besides, she wanted to spend time with Elizabeth and little Philip, her two younger children. And she must tell them that their father, that man they hardly remembered, had returned... from the grave. She wondered how the little ones would take it, but she worried more about how her older children would take it, who every day missed his father as much as she did.

 

However, some of her concerns collapsed as she entered the kitchen and found himself face to face with the ghostly Alexander floating in the middle of the table while Elizabeth cut what appeared to be onions for dinner.

 

"Betsy! You came!" The ghost greeted her with his most lively smile. "The children were just saying that you should be coming."

 

"I told you to wait in the room!" It was the first thing she could say.

 

"Sorry, sorry, but that's ..."

 

"Let me guess, you'd get bored."

 

"Yes! But then I heard Philip go up the stairs and I couldn’t help it ... He’s  so grown up!"

 

"Dad!" Little Philip, who appeared in the kitchen with more vegetables in his hands, spoke offended. "You make it sound like a baby, but I'm almost a man!"

 

"The last time I saw you, you could barely walk..." The most paternal streak of the first treasury secretary was noted not only in his tone but also in his features. "And Eliza, you were a girl when I last saw you... now you're a woman."

 

"Thank you, Dad." The girl turned with a smile on her lips. "Mom, I started preparing dinner, I figured you'd be exhausted."

 

"Thank you, sweetheart." She gave her tenderest smile to her daughter and then turned to the ghost. "You have no idea how much stress you put me through! I was thinking all day how to tell the children! You'd better not show up in front of Angelica!"

 

Hamilton lowered his gaze slightly, then shook his head. "No, I assumed it wouldn’t be good for her... Elizabeth has told me that every day is more difficult..."

 

"Yes." The woman finally dropped into one of the chairs, tired both physically and mentally. "Sometimes she plays the piano Angie gave her, the song you taught her... but nothing more." After a moment of silence, the woman raised her hand, stopping her late husband from speaking. "Don’t say it."

 

“What?”

 

“Don’t say it. I know you’re sorry. Just-- stop saying it.”

 

“Okey.”

 

It was difficult to silence Hamilton, Eliza knew it perfectly, but she was very proud of being one of the few people who could do it.

 

After a while, William joined them and to Eliza's surprise, his reaction was far better than she had expected. The teenager had more memories with his father than her two younger children, but even so, already past the point where he had lived more without him than with him.

 

“What the--”

 

“William, you’re home.” Eliza stood to greet her son, but the boy's eyes were fixed on the white figure floating in the middle of the kitchen. Sometimes Eliza wondered how Hamilton had survived a war if he didn’t even know how to hide properly. "There's a little thing going on..."

 

“Dad?!”

 

“Hi, Will! God, I missed you.” The ghost stepped out of its (in)proper hiding place and approached the young man, who still stared at him in bewilderment. "Still a better reaction than Burr. I knew my family would be less impressionable than him."

 

“What the hell is going on?”

 

“I’m a ghost!” Hamilton raised his arms, happy, as if it were the best thing in the world.

 

"Stop saying it as if it were the most normal, feasible and appropriate thing in the world."

 

“Okey… okey… but it’s true.”

 

“A… ghost…” William looked around for his mother and brothers, then looked back at his father. "I thought they were just the invention of horror stories."

 

"We all believed it, Will." Elizabeth smiled sweetly at her older brother. "Dinner is almost ready, shall we sit down?"

 

And as if nothing, dined as if they were a normal family, as if everything was fine. Hamilton occupied the place he had formerly occupied at family dinners, but without being able to taste a bite, which seemed to displease him greatly. After dinner, Eliza went up to the rooms to see Angelica and spend some time with her, but as always, she ended up even more exhausted than she already was. Her daughter would never be the same, she knew perfectly well, but it still hurt to see her that way every day. After reading a story to her so that she could sleep and wrap her properly, she greeted her other children in their respective beds and returned at last to her own.

 

“You look really tired.” Alexander whispered, lying on the bed, in the place he used to occupy in life, while she dressed to sleep.

 

“I am.”

 

“You’re amazing, you know.”

 

She turned to look at him. Those eyes full of love and devotion to her, worthy of their first years together, made her shudder. “Thank you.”

 

“God, I wish I could hug you.”

 

“Me too.” She got into bed, still looking at him. Having him so close and yet so far away was killing her, it hurt in the depths of her being, and she couldn’t hide the tears that were beginning to form in his eyes. "I miss you so much, even after everything you've done..."

 

"I never deserved you, you were always the best in every way. No one but you would have forgiven me for everything I did to you... "

 

She snuggled between the sheets, wishing she could do it against his body. Eliza couldn’t answer those words, how could she? They were real. Many had looked at her as if she were crazy when they discovered that she had forgiven him... But she simply couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to live without her Alexander, and yet fate had made sure that that happened.

 

"I couldn’t even stay alive."

 

The words she had told him so long ago made her heart jump. “At least you came back…”

 

“And I can stay as long as you want…”

 

Another thing she couldn’t answer, did she really want him to be there? Did she want to see him every day without being able to touch him, without being able to hug him, feel him against her body? Could she bear it? It was to have him again, but at the same time remain separate. At that moment, she couldn’t imagine what was more painful.

 

But perhaps at that moment she wouldn’t have to decide, perhaps at that moment could be that young woman in love with a soldier who dreamed every night to be by his side while she slept re-reading his letters over and over again.

 

"Later we can decide. Right now... just stay by my side for today. "

 

And so it was, Eliza succumbed to the hands of morpheus without being able to feel the touch of her beloved Alexander, but knowing that he was there, by her side once again. And for that night, it was enough.

 

***

 

The next few days were practically the same as the first. Eliza woke up early in the morning, with Hamilton floating in the room and then leaving for the orphanage, where she did her job as she did every day, and when she got home, she found the children playing and laughing with their father.

 

Seeing them like that, she couldn’t help but join them, laughing as well, though with worry in the back of her mind: what would happen when he had to leave? He had told her he could stay as long as she wanted, but she wasn’t too sure.

 

Obviously, she was not an expert on ghosts, no one could be, but she was sure that all that time would not be free.

She only hoped that when those dream days were over, her children would still have a smile on their faces.

 

"How was the war, dad?" The question came from the youngest of the Hamiltons, Philip, one day after dinner. And Eliza could see that Alexander's face became slightly darker.

"Why do you want to know about that, Phil? It was a long time ago. "

"But I want to know what you did!"

 

Hamilton looked at her for a moment, as if seeking approval, and she could only nod. If she wanted anything, it was that her children - and the whole world - knew what Alexander had done in his life. She wanted the children to be proud of being a Hamilton, to be proud of being the children of the man who had given so much to that country.

 

That's how Alex began to tell anecdotes about his days as General Washington's aide-de-camp. Of the people he had to write to convince to support the revolution, the things that happened in the camp, his old friends with whom he had fought, the balls he had attended, how he had met her and fell madly in love with only one dance.

 

The days continued to pass, with work during the day and anecdotes during the nights. And even more uncertain when the only ones awake in the house were Eliza and Alexander. The cold breeze from when he tried to stroke her had already become commonplace, a reflection of the need both felt for really hugging each other again.

 

It had been nearly three weeks of being together again when Eliza finally had the courage to say it.

 

"I don’t think I can go on like this." She felt her heart break again at the thought of not seeing him again.

 

"I understand." Alexander, lying next to her, not really taking up the space, glanced slightly away. "I can go if you want."

 

"That's the matter, I don’t know if I want that, it's just-- I can’t be with you without being really, every time I want to hug you I remember that I can’t and my heart shakes."

 

"I wish there were another way. I wish I could caress you in the same way I can throw objects across the room. "

 

That was something that disturbed Eliza, it was almost as if that ghostly form was designed to hurt, to cause chaos, not to give affection or comfort.

 

"If God is the cause of this, it is more cruel than I had imagined."

 

"I agree. It's not fair, nothing’s fair. I don’t even know why I was given this opportunity. "

 

"You said that Burr had invoked you accidentally."

 

"Yes, but I don’t know if it's true, I just showed up at his house after he threw whiskey in my grave, so I assumed he'd invoked me, but I have no idea."

 

“Wait, what?”

 

“What what?”

 

"Did you show up in his house like nothing? You didn’t decide to come?"

 

"To the world of the living? Technically not, I've been wanting it for a long time, but no one can do it... Until this happened. "

 

“Well, that change things.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

"You're here because someone or something wanted you to be here, you're here for a purpose." Quickly, Eliza's mind set aside her feelings and wondered what the reason for it all might be. It couldn’t be a simple whim of the universe, there had to be a reason, or at least it’s more rational side  _ needed  _ a reason. "We have to find out what it is!"

 

"O-Okey..." Alex glanced toward the window, which showed a dark sky. "Don’t you want to wait until tomorrow for that?"

 

"That doesn’t sound very like you, Alexander."

 

“I know, but-- I always cared more about your health than mine, you need to sleep.”

 

Eliza heaved a sigh, but she smile. He was right, he always worked late, but he made sure she slept enough, especially on occasions when she was pregnant... which had been enough.

 

"Okey, but tomorrow... I'll talk to Burr."

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you like it!! 
> 
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